| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
Michael Ordona
Offers no surprises but is good-natured and funny. It's mercifully devoid of car chases, although it does have a truly inane gunfight -- did any of these trained killers ever hear of target practice? -- and some out-of-left-field martial arts.
|
| 58 |
Baltimore Sun
The movie finally comes to life when Liu turns up.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Although the finished product isn't great, it's more akin to a bad Steve Martin movie from the 1980s than bad Pauly Shore from the 1990s. We mean that as a compliment (sort of).
|
| 50 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Gets entertaining when Liu kicks in.
|
| 50 |
ReelViews
The problem is, while the thriller aspects of the movie are serviceable, they aren't good enough to form the basis of anything more serious than a sit-com, and by spending as much time on them as Code Name: The Cleaner does, it makes the film at times seem drawn-out and tedious.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Cedric the Entertainer's artless performance deadens what could have been a much funnier comedy.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
The humor is too adult for children and the plot far too childish for most adults; in fact, everything about the film is really too silly to warrant much consideration.
|
| 40 |
Washington Post
Aside from Cedric's admittedly appealing persona -- he's always watchable, even in dreck like this -- there's absolutely nothing to recommend The Cleaner.
|
| 40 |
The Hollywood Reporter
This implausible plot full of holes does pave the way for a series of Cedric the Entertainer skits and physical gags. None of these is very funny. A few are painfully unfunny. In either case, the movie comes to a standstill. It's a pity no one thought to screen old Bob Hope movies to see how to integrate comedy into genre filmmaking.
|
| 40 |
Variety
This is an especially limp star vehicle that delivers a few widely spaced moments of frivolity before what should be a quick mop-up trip to the DVD aisles.
|
| 40 |
Chicago Reader
Never really generates any serious laughs.
|
| 38 |
New York Post
Isn't as bad as you'd think, but this comic mash-up of "The Bourne Identity" and "Fat Albert" doesn't have much heft.
|
| 38 |
New York Daily News
How do films this stale and generic continue to get made, let alone with topflight talent? Cedric has been stealing scenes from bigger names for nearly a decade; he deserves better than a few amusingly-improvised minutes at the end of his own movie. And so do we.
|
| 25 |
Boston Globe
It's another standard-issue bad star-vehicle action-comedy, this time for Cedric.
|
| 25 |
Entertainment Weekly
Gregory Kirschling
Get Lucy Liu better roles!
|
| 20 |
LA Weekly
Luke Y. Thompson
Cedric gets some help from a butt-kicking babe (Lucy Liu) who may or may not be his girlfriend, and if you believe this pairing could plausibly happen, you might be gullible enough to buy a ticket to this movie.
|
| 10 |
Film Threat
I humbly submit that Cedric the Entertainer be required to give up the "Entertainer" portion of his nom de plume until he actually starts entertaining us.
|
| 0 |
Austin Chronicle
Toddy Burton
The most poignant point in the whole painful endeavor is when the credits roll. It's here that we see the outtakes and watch Cedric riffing as he improvs variations on his dialogue. These outtakes are genuinely funny, standing as reminders that the last 90 minutes were a sad waste of talent.
|
